Iraqi forces attack Camp Ashraf

Conferences

30 August 2012

U.S. troops came out of Iraq in 2011 and yet today, the United States is spending $49 million a day in security assistance to Iraq. Over 17, almost$18 billion alone in 2012.

Now, what exactly are we buying with the taxpayers' money in Iraq? Are we buying influence? That's what we are supposed to be using this money for. Are we buying strategic advantage? Well, that's why there is such a program as foreign military assistance. And yet today, the very State Department that is dragging its feet to finally resolve the status of what is now primarily, primarily a foreign policy issue that the State Department has confused to no end is serving as the paymaster to the Iraqi government.

Now, this is the really important part because this security assistance that the United States is providing is being dispensed not by the Department of Defense, not by the Department of Defense but by the State Department.

In other words, the American taxpayer is providing the government of Prime Minister Maliki billions of dollars in aid for as I would state and submit less influence and less diplomatic purpose.

That by any account to a Democrat and Republican would be what anyone would deem is an unfair bargain.

I wonder, I wonder whether this assistance should be provided with no strings attached? After all, the Prime Minister of Iraq is apparently no great friend of democracy in Iraq. Anyone who understands the situation in Iraq would tell you that this man has a blind ambition to create a state that becomes nothing more than a puppet regime to the Iranian government.

I wonder if the American people understood the bargain that they now seem to be receiving from this security assistance. Echoing the remarks that were made by my colleagues here, why not? You have worked so hard. You have banged on the doors of Congress. You have pleaded with our friends in the State Department. You have gone from door to door and spent the money out of your pockets asking the State Department to listen.

Well, I ask the State Department the following question. You seem to be having an extraordinary hard time, an extraordinarily unbearable time determining what is right from wrong here. Let us make this easy for you. Should we not take this issue out of your hands and condition the security assistance to the Iraqi government on its willingness to live up to its bargains and bilateral and international obligations. Including its obligation to commit to preserve the human rights, not of the MeK -- I don't like calling the people of Camp Ashraf or Camp Liberty, MeK. These are asylum seekers. These are people. These are refugees. Hello, State Department. These people are decent people looking for a home in another country.

(Applause.)

They make it so easy. When I talk to them, oh, these are the MeK, as if somehow or other they're terrorists. Well, prove it. The court compelled you to prove it and I sat in that court hearing room. And I didn't hear anything. I listened intently. I wanted to hear. Where is the proof? I heard nothing from my friends in the department.

I keep asking the Treasury Department, where is the proof? I get no answer from the Treasury Department. I ask the Justice Department, where is the proof that this is a terrorist organization? I can't even get the benefit of a reply.

You know, after all, Mr. Maliki is no model of a trustworthy American ally. Just two weeks ago the Iraqi central criminal court rejected Americans, the State Department's former request to extradite a Hezbollah commander by the name of Ali Musa Daqduq to face charges of terrorist murder against Americans and British soldiers in Iraq as well for other offenses. This man, this terrorist that the Iraqis seem to be shielding has blood on his hands, he's a Hezbollah Iranian agent.

Why, I ask, if we are providing 48 million dollars a day to the Iraqi government, would they defy turning over a known terrorist that has the blood on his hands of both British and American soldiers. For all Americans, the failure by the Maliki government to turn over such an individual and claim there's inadequate proof represents almost the same type of subterfuge that I see going on here towards the U.S. Government towards the MeK.

Iraq under Prime Minister Maliki is a nation that is taking U.S. taxpayers' money. Iraq is siding with Iran as we have heard, not only on its nuclear weapons program but also in defending the Assad regime in Syria.

Just the other day, Prime Minister Maliki called on other Arab states to cease their interference in undermining the Assad regime.

And it is through Iraq's poorest border that Al-Qaeda has been able to establish a new foothold inside Syria.

Additionally, Iraq is increasingly siding with Iran in its confrontation with Israel. And there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that Iraq is serving as Iran's proxy to punish, to intimidate, to penalize, to subrogate and to harm the refugees and asylum seekers that are now placed in a humanitarian plight that Patrick Kennedy's father as chairman of the Refugee Subcommittee would have condemned as inhumane.

(Applause.)

MR. GINSBURG: Respected, I underline respected, human rights UN official Mr. Boumedra decided to become a whistle blower on the conditions at Camp Liberty. He sent a chilling message not only to the United States as well as to the international community. He essentially said the following. The Iraqi government, the Iraqi government has now been able to convert the UN into a tool of its own designs against the refugees and asylum seekers at Camp Ashraf and at Camp Liberty.

What he charged was that Mr. Kobler, the head of the United Nations official, has colluded with the Iraqi government.

Why would the United States, why would Mr. Fried, the representative of the United States on this matter, wish to be party if there was any conceivable chance that Mr. Boumedra charges were correct and Mr. Kobler was engaged in terrible cover-up.

I asked the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation into the humanitarian conditions that would be not only provided to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations but also to the U.S. Congress. Certainly if the United States taxpayer is going to provide the Maliki government with billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance a year, should we not condition this vital assistance on his government? After all, he's proven not to be are liable ally and we must in effect put these strings.

As the speaker and as Senator D'Amato said and as Senator Kennedy used to tell me and others who work for them, no one should get a free ride when it comes to violating the basic human rights of anyone around the world. And the Maliki government seems to be getting a free ride from the American taxpayer. Enough is enough.

Senator Kennedy and those of us in the Democratic party who understand that this is not merely a political issue but a humanitarian issue, realize that the State Department has a obligation to not only de-list, but also to treat this matter as a refugee and humanitarian issue in the same way that it would have treated the same humanitarian and refugee issue from other people who have suffered in Haiti, from other people's suffered from natural disasters or political disasters around the world. Why should they be treated any differently? After all, there's hardly any foreign military assistance program that the United State funds that doesn't have conditions attached.

When I saw that Senator Carl Levin wrote this letter to Secretary Clinton, he, after all, is Chairman of the Senate Arms Services Committee. He has it within his authority and he certainly has the support by the number of congressmen who have signed these letters, to take when they return back from Congress and to add an amendment to the next piece of legislation working its way through Congress, that they call on the president and obligate the president not to provide any further security assistance to the government of Iraq until the president certifies to Congress that the people of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty are going to be expeditiously relocated under a United Nations program and until then that they will be protected or else there will be no additional security assistance to a regime that is not necessarily doing what's best for the American people.

(Applause.)

Do not think you are doing anything different than anyone else would have done for the last 50 years. It is part of the political process and I encourage you to seriously think.

Let me close by saying to my friends in the administration who I care deeply about, do not condemn. They are good people from Secretary Clinton to her deputy Secretary, Mr. Burns, to the under Secretary Wendy Sherman, to the assistant secretary, my good friend Beth Jones, to the legal advisor. Let us take this matter out of your hands. The courts clearly want to do that. You have tried your best to negotiate an agreement on Iran's nuclear weapons. You must admit and acknowledge that it is no longer possible to achieve that. You've tried your best not to let the MeK issue give any further justification to the Iranian government as if somehow or other by taking them off this list that would further antagonize the Iranians. It no longer matters to us what Maliki feels about the MeK. After all, we know what his stripes look like.

I think it's time for my friends in the Department to acknowledge that they have a humanitarian obligation in the absence of credible proof to do what's right.

Those of us who want to see this administration succeed believe that the definition of success is not doing what you wanted to do and what you no longer can do. It's doing what's right and what's right for the American taxpayer. Thank you very much.